Album review

Anggun

Luminescence

Paris 

25/02/2005 - 

It has taken young Indonesian pop diva Anggun a few years to throw off her polished public image and reveal her true self. Now, having got over her initial culture shock and adapted herself to life in France, Anggun, looking radiant in her early 30s, lets the different facets of her personality shine through on her new album, Luminescence.

Anggun is currently enjoying a second lease of life as a music star, having found fame and fortune the first time around as a child prodigy on the Indonesian music scene. After a successful twelve-year career in her homeland, during which she sold literally millions of albums, Anggun decided to spread her wings and reinvent herself abroad. "I was 20 years old," she recalls, "and one day I went out and bought a one-way ticket to London. I ended up travelling on to Paris, though - I've always been fascinated by that special Parisian sense of beauty and grace -  and it was there that everything suddenly fell into place for me. I felt I had to make a go of things. After all, I'd left my career in Indonesia behind and there was no way I could just pack my bags and go home. I was too proud to do that!"

Anggun's move from Indonesia to France certainly paid off for her in the career stakes. The singer has just put the finishing touches to her third album produced in France and she can now look back and appreciate the distance she has covered. On the song D'où l'on vient, Anggun evokes her Indonesian roots, admitting "This is the first time in my career that I've spoken about my culture and my homeland in such a frank and open way." If the singer's past has been able to resurface in such a serene, untroubled manner, it is perhaps a sign that Anggun's period of transition is finally over. Anggun acknowledges that her move to France has been beneficial on several levels. "There are so many words for everything in French," she marvels, "French people love to talk and when things aren't going well, they'll bare their soul and be open about the slightest problem. That just isn't the done thing in Indonesia and maybe that isn't very healthy... There were a lot of things I'd never felt able to express before and I think Europe made me quite fragile for a while."

Learning to express her inner feelings on the one hand, Anggun also had to master the art of handling her public image on the other, dealing with an incredible amount of media pressure. In 1998, her debut album went gold – not once but twice!- following the phenomenal success of the single La neige au Sahara. After having sold over 900,000 albums in 35 countries, Anggun went on to release a follow-up album and, in less than five years, combined international sales of the two rapidly approached the 2 million mark.

Diverse musical influences

After two international success stories, Anggun appears to have felt freer to explore a more eclectic range of influences on her third album. And she not only pays tribute to her Indonesian roots on Luminescence, but acknowledges her early musical passions. "There was a point in my career when I actually did rock," she says, "I've still got all my old Stones and Beatles albums… I had a bit of a heavy metal period too with Metallica and I even listened to industrial pop via the Nine Inch Nails!" In fact, Anggun's influences cover a wide range of styles, spanning the musical spectrum from jazz to pop and extending from Billie Holiday and Joni Mitchell to Madonna. Anggun keeps her ears tuned to what is happening elsewhere in the world, too, picking up on new sounds via various music channels. And she made a conscious decision to make her new album as wide-ranging as possible. "There's everything from electric guitar feedback to softer ballads with more minimalist arrangements," she says, "There's even a spot of r'n'b and a harp at one point... Up until now, people have tended to have this image of me as 'the Asian girl who sings nice, sweet songs.' OK, that's me, too, but this time round I wanted to open up and show there are other sides to my personality that the public hasn't necessarily discovered yet!"

One way of bringing these hidden facets to light on Luminescence was to invite a number of unexpected guest stars into the studio to serve as musical counterpoints. Tété was one of the chosen. "I'm a big fan of Tété's work," Anggun explains, "I love the elegance of his songwriting... What I said to Tété before we worked together was that rather than trying to put himself in my place, what I wanted from him was just to be himself. That's how the song 'L'improbable cours des choses' came about. That's a song only Tété could write!" As for the version of the single Être une femme which features on the album, Anggun  insisted on including a burst of rap, collaborating with French rap diva Diam's. "Diam's represents another kind of femininity, one that's different from my own but at the same time complementary. I thought it would be interesting to have her point of view on the song, not to mention her presence, her strength and her personality."

The lyrics to Être une femme (Being a Woman) are hardhitting by Anggun's previous pop standards, as if the years spent in France have raised her awareness of the female condition. "I get the impression that although France is a much more 'civilised' country than my homeland, certain things still need to be spelt out," she says, "I'm involved with the association 'Ni putes, ni soumises' and I've heard the most awful stories about kids growing up on problem housing estates, the way young girls are suffering because they're not free to do what they want with their bodies. I find that totally shocking! What I'm saying on 'Être une femme' is that being a woman is something you have to assume, even if in some countries that's a highly complicated business. But we shouldn't give in to basic machismo. The message we have to get out there is that the problem isn't women's bodies, it's what's in men's heads! And that's a very important message. I've come to realise over the years that I'm lucky to be a Muslim woman who grew up in such an open, tolerant country. Things are very different in France where, unfortunately, there are still major issues around this."

Anggun has proved her commitment on a wider global scale, too, acting as a spokesperson for the International Year of Micro-credit (a U.N. programme aimed at eradicating debt in the third world). "The programme is based on the U.N. lending people small sums of money, say 20 or 50 euros," she explains, "That may be nothing to us, but in rupees it represents a lot of money – enough for someone to start their own small business or something. Indonesia is one of the countries where micro-credit has been a big success. The programme's specially targeted at women, giving them a more important place in the home, because it's normally men who bring home the money. Did you know there are 13,000 islands in Indonesia? It's a wealthy country, full of natural resources like gold and diamonds, but those riches don't filter down to the poor. Now, thanks to micro-credit, women can progressively start to change their lifestyle and their social status... I feel very proud and very honoured to have been chosen as the ambassadress of a cause like this." All we can say is, it's good to see a celebrity shine as luminescently on the social front as under the showbizz spotlights!

Anggun Luminescence (Heben Music/Bmg) 2005
Anggun will be performing at L'Européen in Paris 14 - 17 March

Anne  Greffe

Translation : Julie  Street